Many people leave behind items/objects/animals/persons when travelling in a public transport, visiting a friend, eating out in a restaurant . . . etc. This invention describes a device which acts as an alerting means to remind a person that an object/item/animal/person has been left behind or separated a pre-set, specified distance from the object/item/animal/person, thus stopping people wasting a great deal of time, effort and money trying to locate and retrieve missing objects/items/animals/persons and in many times they may lose them forever. The unit also can be used to secure that traveller is accompanying his checked luggage/objects and to quickly identify luggage that does not belong to travellers on board by sounding audio and/or visual alerting means.
(1) Field of the Invention
This invention alerts or reminds a person for forgotten or left behind or separated a pre-set, specified distance from an objects/items/animals/persons. The unit can be used to secure that traveller is accompanying his checked luggage/objects and to quickly identify luggage that does not belong to travellers on board by sounding audio and/or visual alerting means.
It offers simplicity in structure and use. It gives an alerting means (audio and/or visual) as a reminder for the person to go back and retrieve these objects/items/animals/persons.
The invention offers the following advantages: It is based on a simple two way communication system, it contains simple and inexpensive parts, it is small in size, both of the transmitter and receiver units can be respectively attached or clipped to the object/item/animal and the person. The alerting device is user friendly and offers a very straightforward but effective alerting means.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,144 by Russo et al., 1997, describes an alarm system for preventing of loss or theft of one or more articles. This invention suffers from the following limitations: In addition to the ultrasonic communication channel, it requires RF communication channels for coding purposes thus leading to the necessity of an RF antenna both in the monitoring unit carried or attached to a person and the protection unit attached to an article which can have implications as far the size compactness of the apparatus is concerned, it requires two RF communication channels for space diversity for better reception but even with this facility there is no guarantee that the apparatus can monitor articles in all spatial directions and the apparatus requires a sophisticated control logic unit for triggering the alarm unit when the distance between the monitoring and the protection unit attached to an article exceeds a predetermined value.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,772 by Jackson et al, 2000, describes an alarm system for forgotten golf clubs. It comprises a radio transmitter for transmitting a coded signal, which is attached to a divot tool and a radio receiver for receiving the transmitted coded signal which is carried by the golfer, an alarm signal is generated whenever power associated with the coded transmission drops below a prescribed threshold level. This invention has the following shortcomings: It requires an RF antenna both in the receiver and in the transmitter which can have implications as far as size compactness of the system is concerned, the type and specification of the antenna in order to receive signals in all directions is not included, it requires a sophisticated microcontroller both in the transmitter and the receiver electronics, it is only suitable for long range alarm (as it is stated it is typically 50 yards) because the alarm included in the receiver unit is triggered when there is a noticeable drop in the power associated with the coded transmission hence this implies that the system is not suitable for short range applications (in the order of one or two yards) as there would not be enough drop in the power associated with the coded transmitted signal in order to trigger the alarm.
The present invention offers an uncomplicated design and construction, small size, no antenna is required in both of the transmitter unit and the receiver/reminder unit as it does not need an RF communication channel. In addition the apparatus is based on a simple omnidirectonal ultrasonic acoustic or air pressure waves communication channel which is capable of monitoring objects/items/animals/persons in all directions and alerting a person if they are forgotten or left behind whilst scanning them in all directions (360° spatial angular displacement). Moreover, the apparatus uses frequency shift keying (FSK) communication system for using plurality of such apparatuses in the field, the reminder unit offers audio alerting means (buzzers, audio messages or music) and/or visual means such as flashing display unit.
The scope of this invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalent than solely by the examples given.